


Take a Sad Song and Make It Better

by Lynx22281



Series: From the House on Maple Lane [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic, Family, Healing Birth, Kid Fic, Kids, M/M, Mpreg, Pregnant Castiel, Traumatic birth, graphic birth, mpreg!cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 22:52:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lynx22281/pseuds/Lynx22281
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many years after a traumatic first birth experience, Castiel gives birth to his and Dean's fifth child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take a Sad Song and Make It Better

**Author's Note:**

> So instead of working on any of my WIP fics, this wormed its way into my brain and demanded to be written. I should probably stick to short, self-contained stories instead of massive multichaptered behemoths. 
> 
> I got the idea from [this prompt](http://subbycas.tumblr.com/post/72473483632/alpha-dean-getting-his-omega-cas-pregnant-for), although I didn't go with the A/B/O theme this time. I just liked the idea of Dean and Cas having a big family.

“Hey, I’m home!” Dean called out as he walked into the mudroom from the garage. He threw his keys on the table by the bench, where four wildly colored backpacks and four equally colorful winter coats sat. Four pairs of sneakers were scattered haphazardly around the mudroom floor. Dean stomped his snowy boots on the mat by the door before toeing all of the little shoes safely out of the way under the bench. 

“Dad! Daddy! Dad! Dad!” came a muffled chorus of voices, followed immediately by the sound of a herd of wild beasts stampeding up the stairs from the basement. 

Before he could shrug out of his jacket and scarf, he was tackled back against the door by three tow-headed boys. Laughing, he let them pull him down to his knees and tussled with them while they all tried to talk over each other. 

“Dad! I’m gonna be Abraham Lincoln in the play next month!” seven-year old Robbie exclaimed as he tugged on Dean’s left arm. “You’re gonna come see me, right?” 

His older brother, Eric, jumped on their dad’s back, locking his skinny nine-year-old arms around Dean’s neck. “I got an A on my spelling test and Ms. Rourke put my name on the Stars Board!” 

“I ate poop made out of Playdoh!” Jack shrieked with a maniacal giggle that only a five-year-old could make cute as he swung from side to side with his hands fisted in the ends of his dad’s scarf. The older boys made retching sounds and whined about their little brother being gross. 

A pair of fuzzy, lime green bedroom slippers and purple pajama pants covered in unicorns and rainbows appeared in Dean’s field of vision. 

“Hey, Claire-bear,” he greeted with a grin as he helped the boys up from the floor. “What smells good?” 

The 14-year-old gracefully suffered a kiss to the top of her head and gentle tug to her blonde braid after her father untangled himself from her brothers. “Lasagna.” 

After pulling off his coat and shoes, Dean followed the kids to the kitchen. Looking around, he furrowed a brow at Castiel’s obvious absence from the living room. Since Thanksgiving, his pregnant husband could usually be found propped up in a nest of pillows and blankets on the couch in the early evenings helping the kids with their homework and cuddling a very clingy Jack who was slowly beginning to realize that his days as the baby of the family were severely numbered. “Where’s Pop?” 

“Upstairs,” Clarie replied, heading to the stove to take the casserole dish from the oven. “Papa said he called Ms. Ellen about half an hour before we got home.” 

It took a lot of willpower not to immediately make a mad dash to check on Cas at the mention of their midwife’s name. A quick glance down at his watch showed that it had only been about two hours since the call. They were probably in for a long night, so he had plenty of time to help get the kids settled downstairs with their dinner and whatever they wanted to watch on the big TV before he went upstairs. Cas probably didn’t even want him hovering around yet anyway. 

“We’re gonna go back downstairs to eat,” she said as she pulled the plates down from the cabinet and began plating up dinner. 

Dean watched his eldest child manage her younger brothers with unwavering patience. Claire stuck four forks in the right pocket of her pajamas and a handful of napkins in the other. She grabbed two of the plates, telling Eric to get the other two and Robbie and Jack to get bottles of water from the fridge. As the four kids marched down the basement stairs, Claire reminded Jack to go slow and to hold onto the rail. 

He smiled at the back of his daughter’s head as he trailed along behind them. She was the little mama of the family, not because she had to be (like Dean had to be with Sam when they were younger), but because she just liked being in charge. She was so beautifully diplomatic about her commands that her brothers hardly ever realized they were being bossed around by their sister. 

While Claire set up the TV trays in front of the couch and the boys fought over where they wanted to sit, Dean turned on the TV, flipping to Nickelodeon. 

“Ok, munchkins. I’m…” He turned around just in time to catch his middle son jab his youngest son in the ribs with a fork, making Jack scream bloody murder. “Hey, hey! Robbie! We do not poke people with utensils. If you boys can’t behave, I’m giving the remote to your sister and she’ll make you watch _High School Musical_ for the rest of the night.” 

“Sweet!” Claire crowed with a smirk as she sank down into the hot pink beanbag chair next to the couch, balancing her plate in her lap. 

The boys all groaned, but quietly arranged themselves on the couch with minimal shoving. 

“Alright.” Dean nodded, satisfied that his offspring were going to behave long enough to get through their supper. “I’m going upstairs to check on Papa. Claire’s in charge. If you need something, your sister’s the only one allowed to come upstairs. If you’re good for the next hour, then Claire can go get ice cream sandwiches from the freezer for everybody. Capisce?” 

“Capisce!” they all answered in unison. 

“Claire, do you have your phone?” 

The teenager gave him an incredulous look at the notion that she would ever be parted from her lifeline to the world and subtly pointed towards the bottom of the beanbag chair where she had hidden it from her brothers. 

“You’ve got Ellen’s number, right?” 

“Yeah, Dad.” She made a flapping motion with her hand as the theme song for _Spongebob Squarepants_ started playing on the TV. “Just go. We’ll be fine.” 

Dean headed towards the stairs, but paused to look back before he lifted his foot up to the first step. Little flashes of memories from when the four of them were tiny babies darted across his mind as he watched his kids engrossed in their lasagna and cartoons, totally unconcerned that they would soon have a new sibling. He turned before he could get all misty eyed about the moment and jogged up the stairs. 

After a quick stop in the kitchen to grab a big bottle of water and a glass of OJ for Cas, Dean headed up to the master bedroom. The room was dark and quiet when he entered. A thin ribbon of light from the cracked bathroom door cut across the bed, revealing rumpled bedding, but no Cas. The sound of water lapping against the tub and a pained groan turned his attention towards the bathroom. Setting the drinks down on the dresser, he crossed the room. 

“Hey, babe. How’re you doing?” he asked, knocking on the door as he carefully pushed it open. 

“You…you’re just in time,” the naked dark-haired man huffed out between pants. Despite the pain of the contraction he was currently working through, he still managed to give his husband a little smile. Castiel had a white knuckled grip on the edge of the old claw-footed tub with his right hand. His left hand was between his legs, cupped around his bulging perineum, fingers working to gently help his skin stretch. 

“Oh, wow. Yeah.” Wide-eyed, Dean rushed to kneel next to the tub. He gave the room a cursory glance and saw that Cas had already meticulously laid out everything – his cell phone, clean towels, a metal bowl, scissors and clamps still in their sterile packaging, clean clothes, swaddling blankets, a tiny hat – he might need to have close by. Reaching down, Dean tentatively palmed his husband’s bare knee, ready to pull back if Cas needed him to be totally hands off. “Need me to do anything?” 

Cas just shook his head as he blew out a harsh breath with the ebbing contraction, accepting the comfort of Dean’s touch. He tipped his head back against the tiled wall and closed his eyes to rest before the next one began. His hands moved over the tight swell of his wet belly in rhythm with his deep, controlled breathing. 

Dean was amazed at how calm his husband could be during birth, especially after witnessing firsthand the trauma of Claire’s delivery. They had been young, too young, when Claire came along, and had been terribly naïve about the whole childbirth process, too trusting of the doctors and nurses who didn’t want to bother with a first-timer having a perfectly normal, though long, labor. 

After 12 hours at the hospital Cas’s cervix had dilated over halfway and looked to be progressing just fine, but the obstetrician decided to order a Pitocin drip to speed things up so he could make it to the airport in time for his family’s vacation to Disneyland. The medically augmented contractions quickly became unbearable and Cas could no longer cope with the pain. Up until that point, he had been managing just fine with the breathing and meditation techniques they’d learned in their childbirth classes. After an hour of suffering through excruciating pain, he gave in and asked for an epidural. The epidural ended up working only on the left side of this body and didn’t offer much relief. 

Pushing had been impossible. He couldn’t feel what he was doing well enough to be effective and strained for a full two hours with nothing to show for it. The instructions shouted at him by the doctor and nurses were so unhelpful and discouraging that Cas finally gave up completely. Dean tried to tell him that he was doing good and could make it through to the end, but he was too exhausted and upset to keep going. 

When it became clear that Castiel couldn’t keep pushing, the obstetrician called for forceps, outright blaming Cas for quitting so easily. By that point in the delivery, the doctor was so rushed and flustered that he wasn’t paying close enough attention to what he was doing once he got the forceps in place and turned the baby at a weird angle causing her shoulder to get stuck behind Cas’s pelvic bone. 

Two nurses jerked Cas down on the bed, flat on his back, and pushed his bent knees tight up against the sides of his swollen abdomen in an attempt to open his hips as wide as possible. One of them pushed down heavily on his pelvis to dislodge Claire’s shoulder while the doctor pulled on her head. 

By the time the baby made her entrance, she had multiple contusions on her face and left shoulder and a fractured clavicle. She was slow to respond to stimulation and her left arm didn’t move on its own, so she was whisked out of the delivery room and straight to the NICU. Cas didn’t fare much better. He had a fourth-degree tear, blood loss that required a transfusion, and nerve damage from his left hip being nearly dislocated by the nurse pulling on it. Since the left side of his body had been numbed by the epidural, he couldn’t offer any resistance to her manipulations when she flexed his leg too far back. 

They both recovered over time, but not without physical reminders of the delivery; Claire had a dent in her skull from the forceps and couldn’t hold her left arm higher than her shoulder for every long, and Cas had lingering issues with his hip. The experience had been a nightmare that nobody wanted to relive and almost prevented Claire from having any siblings. 

Four years later when Dean and Cas decided to try for a second baby, Cas went next door to the Harvelles' and asked Ellen if she was accepting new patients before they even attempted to get pregnant again. He was older, wiser, and armed with all sorts of information about how to prevent the complications that had happened during Claire’s birth. He had decided that he wanted to be seen by a midwife instead of an obstetrician and that he wanted a homebirth instead of a hospital birth. 

Dean worried the whole nine months, but Ellen was a godsend, never getting tired of answering their seemingly unending list of questions or soothing Dean’s fears. When the big day arrived, she spent more time reassuring Dean that Cas was doing fine than she did actively supporting Cas through his labor, not that he needed it. Cas was well prepared to handle things. His calm faltered only briefly, right after Eric’s head was delivered and it took a couple of minutes for his body to slowly turn to the proper position for the rest of the delivery. Dean was sitting on the living room floor, propped up against the coffee table, with Cas leaning back between his legs when Ellen guided Cas's hands down to slip under Eric's arms allowing him to pull the boy out of his own body. That moment went along way towards healing some of the emotional scars from Claire's birth. 

Two years later when Robbie was born, Ellen was on hand for the delivery, but Cas did everything himself, from periodic checks to see how his cervix was dilating while he was in labor, to supporting his perineum while the baby was crowning, to checking for the cord around his neck once his head had been delivered, to finally heaving a wet, wiggly baby up onto his bare chest. For Jack’s birth, Cas wanted to be on his own with just Dean by his side. Ellen came over when Cas’s water broke, but stayed downstairs with Claire, Eric, and Robbie until Dean came down to let the kids know they had a new little brother. 

“Nnnhhgh…!” 

The pained grunt brought Dean away from reminiscing and back to the present where Castiel had tightly gripped his left shoulder, leaving a wet handprint on the sleeve his shirt. 

“Hold…my leg,” Cas panted as he tried to prop his foot up on the slick edge of the tub, but couldn’t find any traction to keep it there. 

Dean hooked his arm around Cas’s raised knee, giving him something sturdy to press against as he pushed through the building contraction. He rubbed the inside of Cas’s thigh under the water, close to where the baby’s scalp was slowly beginning to appear. After taking a deep inhale, Cas gave a series of short little pushes. A little involuntary yelp of discomfort escaped his throat as his skin stretched painfully thin around the widest part of the baby’s head. 

“He’s got a head of dark hair,” Dean remarked with a grin as he watched the baby’s thick, inky locks flutter beneath the surface of the water. 

“Finally,” Cas breathed out with a faint smile, but didn’t stop pushing. 

The four older kids were all fair-haired, freckled, and green eyed, just like Dean, and Cas often got weird looks from strangers whenever he was out and about alone with their brood since none of them physically favored him in the least (though personality wise, no one could doubt that Claire was Cas’s daughter). When Jack was just three months old, two little old ladies at the grocery store had been 100% certain that he’d kidnapped the four of them. Thankfully the manager recognized Cas and the kids before the women could call the cops. 

The baby’s head popped out, face down, and Cas sagged tiredly back against the tub, breathing heavily. Dean leaned over to kiss his cheek and murmur soft encouragement and praise against his ear. 

In the lull before the next contraction, Cas turned to look up at his husband with a weary smile. “I uh…have an early birthday present for you.” 

Dean chuckled. “I can see that.” 

“I want you to catch him.” 

He sat up a little straighter, realizing the importance of the offer. Cas felt safe enough to let go of his control a little bit to give Dean the opportunity to be the first person to hold their new baby. He grinned, big and bright. “Yeah…yeah. Ok. Awesome.” 

Cas’s smile was soon replaced with a look of concentration as the next contraction started. He quickly positioned Dean’s hands down to gently cup around the baby’s slowly rotating head, and then gripped the lip of the tub tightly with both hands as he gave a long, hard push. The baby’s shoulders and arms slipped smoothly free of Cas’s body followed by the torso, abdomen, hips, and legs. 

Sloshing water over the edge of the tub and all down his front, Dean brought their slippery newborn up to his chest, laughing. “Hey, sweetheart. Happy birthday!” 

The baby gave a wet, gurgly cry, little arms and legs flailing in protest at being made to leave the warm comfort of the water. Dean hurried to one-handedly unfold a towel and get the baby dry. He snuck a peek between the baby’s legs. 

“Sorry baby girl, we’ve been calling you _him_ and _he_ for the last nine months,” he laughed again as he bundled her up in the soft towel. They had wanted to be surprised, but were both pretty sure they were going to have another boy. Hopefully she wouldn't mind the yellow and navy themed nursery. It wasn't overly masculine, but definitely wasn't pink and frilly. 

Castiel chuckled as he reached out for the baby. Dean carefully lowered her into her other father’s arms and smiled proudly at the pair of them. He kissed the top of Cas's head and watched as he gave the baby a brief assessment, checking her reflexes, pulse, and breathing. She was quiet, but alert and responsive to Cas’s ministrations. Once he was satisfied that she was healthy, he snuggled her close to his bare chest and helped her latch onto his nipple. 

She was pretty and pink laying against Cas's chest. Her hair had fluffed up into dark, wayward locks, just like Cas’s, now that it was dry. Her eyes were the same dark blueberry color all of their babies had been born with, but Dean hoped they didn't turn like the other kids' eyes had. As much as he loved their fair-skinned selves (he could commiserate with them in the hot summer sun), he definitely wouldn’t mind this kid inheriting Cas’s good looks. 

“We make some good lookin’ kids, Cas.” His face was going to ache later from the smile that seemed to be stuck in place. 

Cas smiled happily up at Dean. “Yeah, we do. She’s beautiful.” 

Dean reached down to gently massage his husband’s still swollen belly with a practiced hand. The flesh was soft and warm beneath his palm. His skin was streaked with pale stretch marks that would remain even after his abdomen firmed up again in a few months. Dean loved to trace the lines with his fingertips. He called them Cas’s tiger stripes because he was as fierce and strong as a big cat when it came to their kids, who had all been lovingly cradled under those marks. 

Half an hour later, Cas handed the baby back to Dean so he could work through the final contractions to deliver the afterbirth. After checking to make sure the placenta was intact and had no visible deformities that they should be worried over, he climbed into the steaming hot shower while Dean gave the baby her first bath at the sink. 

With the clean baby swaddled up in a blanket and a warm cotton hat pulled down over her brow, Dean sat on the toilet lid to wait for Cas to finish up. He glanced down at this watch to see that he’d only been home for just over an hour. 

“Hey,” he called over the sound of the shower to get Cas’s attention. “When did your contractions start?” 

“ _General Hospital_ was on, so sometime around one o’clock. My water broke at three,” he replied, turning off the water. 

“You were only in labor for like five hours,” he said incredulously looking down at the sleeping baby tucked snuggly into the bend of his elbow. Robbie had held the record for shortest labor at eight hours; the others were all over ten hours. 

"Guess she didn't want to wait around." Cas toweled off and pulled on loose gray sweatpants and Dean's faded black _Led Zeppelin 1977 USA Tour_ t-shirt. He leaned down to kiss Dean and stroke his hand over the baby's head. "I'm gonna call Ellen again. Will you go get Claire?" 

"Yeah, sure." He stood up to follow Cas into the bedroom, getting him and the baby settled into bed under the covers before heading downstairs. 

The kids were still watching cartoons, but the dinner dishes and TV trays had been put away. Claire was cuddling a half-asleep Jack under a fleece blanket in the bean-bag chair. The five-year-old's thumb was planted firmly in his mouth. They had mostly broken him of the habit, but whenever he got sleepy or upset he still found comfort in sucking his thumb and rubbing his nose with his index finger. Eric and Robbie were sprawled out on the big sectional sofa. They looked up when their dad made it to the bottom of the stairs. 

"Claire," Dean beckoned with a little nod towards his shoulder. 

She carefully wiggled out from Jack and darted across the room quickly before her brothers could complain that she was blocking their view of the TV. 

"Eric, Ms. Ellen's gonna be over in a few minutes. Will you let her in?" 

"Ok, Dad," he replied, not taking his eyes off the tv. 

Dean just chuckled and shook his head, leading Claire up to the master bedroom. 

"Is Papa ok?" she asked timidly. She knew the awful things that had happened when she was born and she was old enough to realize that childbirth much more than the stork dropping off babies in the middle of the night. 

"He's fine." He pulled her into a tight hug, kissing the top of her head, and then nudged her gently towards the closed bedroom door. Dean followed his oldest daughter into the room. 

Castiel smiled brightly at them. Claire hurried across the room and climbed up onto the bed snuggling into her dad's side to look down at her new sibling. Cas looped an arm around her pulling her close. "Hey, baby. Meet your new sister." 

"Sister!" she exclaimed quietly, reaching out to stroke the baby's tiny little hand where it clutched the edge of the blanket. The baby flexed her fingers at the touch and grabbed hold of Claire's finger. She looked up at Cas, grinning. "Can I hold her?" 

"Yeah," he replied with a smile as he passed his youngest child over to his oldest. 

Dean stretched out on the bed next to Claire, sandwiching her and the baby between him and Cas. "Sorry we were a little late on that Christmas present you wanted when you were six." 

"Better late than never, right?" she said with a little laugh. "What's her name?" 

Dean looked at Cas who have a little nod of his head. "Well, your letter to Santa that year said you wanted a little sister named Emma Grace, so this Emma Grace." 

"Welcome to the family, Gracie," she cooed softly, giving the baby a kiss to her wrinkled forehead. "We're a crazy bunch, but we'll love you like nobody else ever will." 

Cas gazed over Claire's head to Dean, and Dean read a dozen things in that soft, happy look on his husband's face, but most of all he saw that the pain of Claire's birth was finally a thing of the past. They had two sweet girls and three rambunctious boys and just enough love to stretch over all of them. Their family was happy, healthy, and finally complete.

**Author's Note:**

> The Winchester Kids:  
> Mary Claire  
> Eric Samuel  
> Robert (Robbie) Campbell  
> John (Jack) Henry  
> Emma Grace
> 
> I like giving the kids 'canon' inspired names. Eric is actually John Winchester's middle name. That was a little Easter egg that I hadn't noticed until I saw a random shot of John's FBI wanted post a week or so ago.
> 
> Also, I got the idea for the tiger stripes/strechmarks thing from a post I've seen circulating on Tumblr where a little girl asks her mom/aunt/somebody about the marks on her belly and she says they're her tiger stripes and then the little girl goes around the house growling because she wants to be a tiger when she grows up. It was sooo cute, but I can't find the post to link to it. (If somebody finds it and puts it in a comment, I'll add it to the notes!)


End file.
